


Under New Management

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Canon, Episode Related, Gap Filler, Season/Series 02, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-15
Updated: 2008-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-27 14:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12082743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: 'What was that all about?" "Pain management". A gapfiller for ep. 205.





	Under New Management

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

“What was that all about?”

“Pain management.”

~~~

It took almost four minutes for the panic to kick in. To Justin’s credit, it was much longer than I’d expected.

I stepped up onto the second metal stair, elevating my vision above the heads of the sweaty, gyrating fags in order to watch him; his face, his eyes, the way his body was moving. To say I was surprised to find him at Babylon wasn’t entirely accurate; ‘astonished’, ‘thunderstruck’, or ‘staggered’ summed up my feelings a little more precisely.

What the fuck could’ve possibly happened to initiate Justin’s overnight transition from ‘I don’t want my dick sucked because I have school tomorrow’ to ‘come and fuck me, I’m a high school drop-out’?

And how was it that yesterday, someone brushing against him in a crowded hallway set Justin on edge, and yet tonight he was able to get halfway up some skater boy’s ass in the middle of a swarming dance floor without even batting a fucking eyelash?

Regrettably, I doubted these were the results of a spontaneous miracle cure. Judging by his actions and appearance, it was far more probable that Justin was tweaked out of his fucking tree. Shit.

“Brian.” Michael’s voice cut through my inner monologue, and I tore my gaze away from Justin for a second to look down at his face. “We’re gonna grab a couple of beers. You coming?”

“No.” I answered shortly, turning my attention back to the dance floor. “You go. I’ll catch you later.”

Michael opened his mouth to protest, but when his eyes followed my gaze and saw what I was concentrating on, he fell silent. He’d long ago learnt to read my cryptic actions and veiled emotions. He put his hand down on mine and squeezed briefly before leading Emmett and the Wonder Whacker in the direction of the bar, still discussing the imminent retirement of fucking Buzzy.

In the twenty seconds or so it had taken for that little exchange, Justin had gone from looking merely uncomfortable to distinctly distressed. Whatever sanctity and Dutch courage the drugs and/or alcohol had offered him was rapidly losing its potency.

His hands had clenched into fists at the trick’s waist, and his dancing had evolved into a backward shuffle as he tried to re-establish his personal space. When the strobe lights flashed over Justin’s face, I saw tiny beads of sweat gathering at the corners of his eyes; a tell-tale sign of panic.

With a surge of protectiveness that surprised me, I found myself stepping down from the stairs and shoving my way through the mass of sweaty, vibrating bodies towards Justin and his baggy-trousered trick. Skater Boy was obviously completely oblivious to Justin’s accelerating unease, evidently elated at having scored such a perfect guy for the first (and last) time in his life.

“Hey!” I called when I was within yelling range of the two. Justin had his back to me but snapped his head around at the sound of my voice, his eyes searching for my face, a strange look of relief mixed with defeat playing on his features.

“What the hell is this?” Skater Boy asked indignantly when I grabbed Justin’s elbow and pulled him towards me. Justin stumbled and almost fell and I had to seize him under the arms before he ended up in a heap on the floor. Christ, he was totally potted…or something.

“Fuck off!” I barked at Justin’s ex-dance partner, who blanched at my ferocious glare and melted submissively back into the crowd.

I hauled Justin around and lead him off the dance floor, finding a quiet corner in which I could make an assessment of my wayward college boy. I pried his clinging hands from my shirt and gently wrapped my fingers around his, holding both his hands in mine which sometimes helped to placate him. His hands were freezing cold.

“What did you take?” I asked, dipping my head and trying to look into his face. I was sure he was on something, but I couldn’t pin the symptoms down to any particular drug. Justin pressed against my chest with our entangled hands, as if trying to push me away but not willing to leave the safety I alone could offer him.

“Nothing,” Justin muttered when I repeated the question more insistently. “Just drinks. A couple beers and some JD.”

“For fuck’s sake.” I groaned as it suddenly dawned on me why Justin appeared to be so stoned. The physician had warned us against mixing his pain medication with alcohol because of the laundry list of side effects; disorientation, confusion, dizziness, fainting, nausea, vomiting, etc.’ Jesus.

“C’mon, let’s go,” I ordered, tugging on Justin’s hand and pulling him towards the exit with no immediate plan of action beyond getting him out of the night club.

“No, I don’t wanna go,” Justin muttered, disengaging himself and pulling back slightly. I considered for a few nanoseconds as to whether it was him or the narcotics talking, but I decided that it was irrelevant at this point.

“I said, let’s go,” I repeated more harshly, seizing Justin by the upper arm and yanking him to my side. I wasn’t so much angry at his defiance as freaked out about the consequences of his liquid pain management. “Don’t make me carry you out of here, kid.”

“No,” Justin repeated stubbornly, trying to twist out of my grip. His movements were so slow and sluggish that the attempt to free himself was almost pathetic. “I’m not…I’m can’t…let me go, leave me alone…”

I could’ve (and probably would’ve) thrown Justin over my shoulder and carried him out of the club as I’d threatened to. But I was afraid that in his inebriated state he’d start screaming, and I didn’t want to make a fucking scene. I switched tactics abruptly.

“Stop being so fucking childish,” I snapped before replacing my irritated expression with one of supreme nonchalance, “Fine. I’ll leave you alone. I have better things to do than run around after petulant delinquents all night.”

I didn’t want to be cruel, but I did need to make a point. I let go of Justin’s arm and turned my back on him abruptly, striding away in the direction of the bar. I deliberately didn’t look around at him and I forced myself not to slow down as the distance widened between us.

I counted the seconds as they ticked by. Six…seven…eight… From somewhere behind me, my sensitized ears picked up Justin’s distinct noise of panicked distress; I recognized it as the same noise he made when he woke from a nightmare. I had to fight with myself not to turn and go back to him. Eleven… twelve… thirteen…

At sixteen, I heard Justin stumble up behind me, and a moment later I felt his hands gripping the sides of my waist tightly from behind, clinching the material of my shirt so hard his knuckles went white. I felt his sweaty forehead pressed hard between my shoulder blades and heard him almost sob out my name as he gulped for air.

“Good boy,” I breathed, more to myself than him as I turned around and took him in my arms, trying not to wince at the force of his death grip around my midriff. I rubbed firm circles into his back, trying to encourage him to breathe normally, feeling guilty despite myself for sending him into yet another tailspin.

“Are you gonna come with me now?” I asked gently when his breathing had normalized sufficiently enough that he wouldn’t start hyperventilating.

Justin didn’t move or respond, but he didn’t protest when I wrapped an arm around his waist and held him against me, navigating our way through the sea of twisting, gyrating bodies towards the exit. I had no idea how the fuck Justin had gotten to Babylon, but I saw no point in asking him now. I’d get it out of him in the morning.

Outside in the alley, I pretended not to see the tears of humiliation and defeat that were making Justin’s eyes shine so brightly in the glow of the street lamps.

~~~

Later

“Go away.” Justin gulped from his position curled up by the toilet when he heard my approach. He turned his face away from me in an attempt to hide the tears I knew were there. “Leave me alone…”

“Not his time.” I replied as I knelt beside him, my words coming out far more tenderly than I’d meant them to. I brushed the sweaty hair off Justin’s forehead to make him look at me, feeling his skin cool and clammy under my fingertips.

The warnings about the vertigo and vomiting had been well-founded. To his credit and my relief, Justin had managed to spare the jeep’s leather interior of the contents of his stomach (in response to my death threat…I mean, ‘request’).

However, he’d been making up for that valiant restraint for the last thirty minutes, refusing my help as he wrenched and heaved, curling up like a hedgehog on the tiled bathroom floor between the waves of nausea.

I’d sensed that Justin had needed to be alone in this misery, simply as a means of purging his rampaging emotions. So I had let him get on with it, listening carefully from the bedroom in case he passed out or had another panic attack. It wasn’t until I’d heard him start crying softly that I decided it was high time I intervened.

“C’mon, get up.” I instructed gently, sliding my hands under Justin’s arms and lifting him to his feet. He tried feebly to resist, gulping out something about being sick again, but I seriously doubted there was anything left in his stomach.

I took him to the sink and handed him a tooth glass full of water, concerned that between the vomit, the booze, and the tears, Justin was in danger of shrivelling up and dying of dehydration overnight.

When the glass slipped from his limp fingers and soaked the frount of his t-shirt, Justin looked up at me with eyes so full of apologetic sorrow that I couldn’t help laughing. He was still so fucking cute. I refilled the glass and held it to his lips, massaging the sides of his neck with my fingers as he drank the water obediently.

All the fire and defiance and self-assertion had left him completely, and in the residual exhaustion, he looked soft and delicate and so impossibly young. I felt a surge of sympathy and tenderness towards him which I sensed he was aware of as I peeled the wet t-shirt from his body and pulled it over his head.

I handed Justin his toothbrush and the toothpaste before pulling my own shirt off and splashing cold water on my face and neck, finding the sting revitalizing and fresh. I went into the bedroom to toss our clothes in the laundry pile and when I went back into the bathroom, I found Justin staring at his reflection in the mirror, focusing not on his face, but on his right hand which held the toothbrush. His hand was shaking quite violently in what I knew only too well was the tremor caused by the brain damage.

“I hate it,” he said suddenly, with a viciousness that seemed to come from nowhere. “I hate my fucking gimp hand and I hate my brain for making me want to draw. I hate the fucking college. I hate my life! I hate it, I hate it!”

He burst into angry sobs, leaning his elbows on the vanity and covering his face with his hands as he rocked himself back and forth. He sobbed out angry words against himself, against Chris Hobbs, against the world and his shattered dreams and devastated hopes. He wailed that it wasn’t fair, that he’d done nothing to deserve it, that art was all he’d ever wanted to do and now he couldn’t even do that.

There was nothing I could do. There was nothing I wanted to do. This was his pain management.

I waited, watching silently until the storm had blown itself out and Justin was utterly spent, hunched over the sink heaving and gasping for air. I went to him slowly and I took him gently into my arms, just holding him as he pressed his streaming face against the bare skin of my shoulder. After a time he fell silent, and I stroked his hair, his neck, his back and shoulders soothingly until I finally felt him relax against my body.

I took him back into the bedroom and sat him on the edge of the platform, kissing his forehead softly as I guided his upper body down on the bed, my arm around his back. By the time I’d gotten his belt and fly undone and had slid the tight jeans off his legs, Justin was hovering at the brink of the sleep, his breathing deep, soft and even.

I knelt on the platform and pulled him up against me again so I could draw the sheets back, feeling his arms curling around my back. When I laid him down on the bed again, Justin tightened his hold slightly and I looked down to see that his eyes were partially open, the irises midnight blue under his half closed lids.

“Go to sleep, Sunshine.” I whispered, putting a finger softly across his lips and kissing the bridge of his nose lovingly. I settled myself beside him and pulled him gently against me, feeling him relax and nestle into the crook of my body. We often lay together like this now, wrapped in and consumed by each other’s warmth and mutual affection.

“Brian?” Justin whispered softly after a few moments of silence. He held up his right hand, which was still trembling slightly. “Hold my hand.”

I took his hand gently in mine, running my fingers over it, turning it over in my palm and suddenly realizing how small and delicate it was compared to mine. I brought his hand to my lips and kissed it, making Justin unfurl his fingers and splay them out against my face, holding onto my thumb which rested across his palm. I wove his fingers with my own and brought both our hands down to rest against his chest.

“I don’t hate my hand when you’re holding it,” Justin whispered so softly his words were almost lost to the blissful silence than enrobed us. “I don’t hate the world when I’m with you. I don’t hate my life when you’re in it…”

Justin’s voice trailed away as he drifted peacefully from the conscious world and into sleep. I buried my nose in Justin’s soft fragrant hair, holding him tightly and closing my eyes as they stung with tears. I knew he wouldn’t remember his beautiful words in the morning just as I knew I would never forget them.

I was his pain management.  



End file.
